You cannot understand the left if you do not understand that Leftism is a religion. It is not God-based (some Left-wing Christians' and Jews' claims notwithstanding), but otherwise it has every characteristic of a religion. The most blatant of those characteristics is dogma. People who believe in Leftism have as many dogmas as the most fundamentalist Christian.

One of them is material equality as the preeminent moral goal. Another is the villainy of corporations. The bigger the corporation, the greater the villainy. Thus, instead of the devil, the left has Big Pharma, Big Tobacco, Big Oil, the "military-industrial complex," and the like. Meanwhile, Big Labor, Big Trial Lawyers, and, of course, Big Government are leftwing angels. And why is that? Why, to be specific, does the left fear big corporations but not big government? The answer is dogma -- a belief system that transcends reason. No rational person can deny that big governments have caused almost all the great evils of the last century, arguably the bloodiest in history. Who killed the 20-30 million Soviet citizens in the Gulag Archipelago -- big government or big business? Hint: There were no private businesses in the Soviet Union. Who deliberately caused 75 million Chinese to starve to death -- big government or big business? Hint: See previous hint. Did Coca Cola kill five million Ukrainians? Did Big Oil slaughter a quarter of the Cambodian population? Would there have been a Holocaust without the huge Nazi state?

Whatever bad big corporations have done is dwarfed by the monstrous crimes -- the mass enslavement of people, the deprivation of the most basic human rights, not to mention the mass murder and torture and genocide -- committed by big governments.

How can anyone who thinks rationally believe that big corporations rather than big governments pose the greatest threat to humanity? The answer is that it takes a mind distorted by leftist dogma. If there is another explanation, I do not know what it is.

Religious Christians and Jews also have some irrational beliefs, but their irrationality is overwhelmingly confined to theological matters; and these theological irrationalities have no deleterious impact on religious Jews' and Christians' ability to see the world rationally and morally. Few religious Jews or Christians believe that big corporations are in any way analogous to big government in terms of evil done. And the few who do are leftists.

That the Left demonizes "Big Pharma," for instance, is an example of leftwing thinking. America's pharmaceutical companies have saved millions of lives, including millions of leftists' lives. And I do not doubt that in order to increase profits, they have not always played by the rules. But to demonize big pharmaceutical companies while lionizing big government, big labor unions and big trial law firms, is to stand morality on its head.

There is yet another reason to fear big government far more than big corporations. ExxonMobil has no police force, no IRS, no ability to arrest you, no ability to shut you up, and certainly no ability to kill you. ExxonMobil can't knock on your door in the middle of the night and legally take you away. Apple Computer cannot take your money away without your consent, and it runs no prisons. The government does all of these things.

Of course, the left will respond that government also does good and that corporations and capitalists are, by their very nature, "greedy."

To which the rational response is that, of course, government also does good. But so do the vast majority of corporations, private citizens, church groups, and myriad voluntary associations. On the other hand, only big government can do anything approaching the monstrous evils of the last century.

As for greed: Between hunger for money and hunger for power, the latter is incomparably more frightening. It is noteworthy that none of the twentieth century's monsters -- Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, Mao -- were preoccupied with material gain. They loved power much more than money.

And that is why the left is much more frightening than the right. It craves power.

Leftism carries on like a religion as it does, because it has a spiritual side, but one that at best has a warped view of divine grace and at worst is downright demonic, devilish. Not even explicit atheism can evade this fact.

2
posted on 05/22/2012 4:53:42 AM PDT
by HiTech RedNeck
(Churches are full of hypocrites you say? Welcome: there's always room for one more.)

It’s also true about government vs. business. “Big business” never attempted to subsume the entire activity of a country. A particular business might try to monopolize one aspect of that activity (like Coca Cola might want to be the most consumed soft drink, or Microsoft the largest vendor of business software), but to make the whole life of the people of that country about that business? It would have been to laugh.

5
posted on 05/22/2012 4:57:49 AM PDT
by HiTech RedNeck
(Churches are full of hypocrites you say? Welcome: there's always room for one more.)

Prager’s absolutely right. And I’d add that “big government” is far more indestructible than any business. Businesses — even big ones — can go completely out of business despite their best efforts to the contrary. But governments never go voluntarily out of business. If they become less popular, they can always hold on to power via the barrel of a gun.

The biggest threat from a private company comes when it allies with big government. Pre-2009 General Motors couldn’t force me to buy a car, but newly re-formed Government Motors can force me to at least pay for one.

8
posted on 05/22/2012 5:19:02 AM PDT
by KarlInOhio
(You only have three billion heartbeats in a lifetime.How many does the government claim as its own?)

Truly the evil in GM (and Chrysler) today is not because of those companies. I agree. To flop and go bankrupt is hardly anything compared to becoming a permanent tax leech. When if ever will these two get out of the government hot house?

11
posted on 05/22/2012 5:34:45 AM PDT
by HiTech RedNeck
(Churches are full of hypocrites you say? Welcome: there's always room for one more.)

Government is the only entity that can legally use or threaten to use deadly force to impose its will on you.

Leftists, especially the sheeperals, cringe and recoil when you bring up the deadly coercive inherency of all their policies. “You’d have to make a lot of dumb decisions for it to get to the point where force was used.”

Yes, you’d have to resist the government’s will to the point where they used force, but you either give in or resist. If you resist, the situation remains that men with guns show up to take your liberty, property, or life.

But, you just can’t, in most situations, get a liberal to understand this fact.

12
posted on 05/22/2012 5:42:16 AM PDT
by MrB
(The difference between a Humanist and a Satanist - the latter knows whom he's working for)

I’ve tried to have this discussion with Leftists before (and you can imagine how that turned out).

I pointed out that the same people who work for big government work for big corporations (and the revolving door between the two is an obvious example).

They seem to think that either: 1) government is somehow (magically) more noble than corporations (even as Pragar points out the evidence in total is against that) or 2) that the people who work in governments are somehow more noble than those who work in corporations (which anyone who has been to the DMV knows is balony).

But, as we’ve all come to realize, trying to reason with a Leftist is like trying to convince your walls to paint themselves.

I don’t fear big business as long as government does its proper job. But when government colludes with business, then business can be just as dangerous as government.

We can see this right now in China, where business is allowed to pollute on a massive scale, and those who harmed are prevented from being made whole by the corrupt legal system.

The real issue is power and the ability to use force to advance that power. With rare exception like private security guards, we give government a monopoly on the use of force. Indeed were a private business to assault us or steal our property we should be able to call upon government to protect us. But as with all human activities, it is hard to define the ideal let alone achieve and maintain it for very long. Government is far more dangerous than business, but sometimes business can be just as harmful.

Crony Corporatism - the Unholy Alliance between the Federal Government and Big Business. Free enterprise is a thing of the past in most places in our country. Time to put an end to us as the Servants and Govt. as Master.

Big business was one of the earliest forces behind big government. The income tax was supported by the richest people in the country, who them promptly sheltered their income in foundations. It was JP Morgan who was behind Teddy Roosevelt as a "trust buster." It has been big business that is the primary beneficiary of regulations that destroy their smaller competition.

18
posted on 05/22/2012 7:40:42 AM PDT
by Carry_Okie
(The RINOcrat Party is still in charge. There has never been a conservative American government.)

Very first level. I can only imagine the dinner conversation between him, Mark Steyn, Tom Sowell, and his Cali neighbor Victor Davis Hanson. I'm grateful to even read an occasional column by Dennis Prager. His show was a delight. It's on at midnight local, but I'm cutting zzzz’s by then.

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